Like it Matters

by David Cornwell

  “You have to go to sleep before you can wake up, bru. Jissus.” He rubbed his face again. His eyes were like tiny slits and his jaw just kept moving and moving. “So what do you want?”

  “I don’t know, something fun, up stuff. Coke, maybe?”

  He shook his head and said, “No, pal”—but then I could see him remember something, this quiver went through his face, and he sat up straight and said, “Shit.” He started digging around in his sleeping bag and he pulled out a pair of jeans. He put his hands in all the pockets, saying, “Come on, come on, come on,” and then he smiled and said, “Daarsy.” He dropped the jeans and he was holding a tiny plastic bag and a scrap of paper. He found a bank card in another pocket and then tipped some powder out of the bag and onto the card. Then he tried to lift the card to his face, but his hand was shaking so much he ducked his head down instead, and sniffed all the powder off the plastic. “Alright,” he said. “Battery’s charging.”

  I asked him if I could just buy some of that, but he told me that was the last of it. He showed me a number on the scrap of paper from his jeans and he said he needed to buy more. He asked me if I had a car.

  I told him I might be able to borrow one, and then he just turned around and pulled the sleeping bag over his shoulders and said, “Two hours. Come get me here.”

  Was that really him, Ed?

  Was that really Charlotte’s fucking cousin back there in Grahamstown?

  Is that really TJ sitting in front of you right now?

  It all seemed unlikely, and I was feeling good, better and better the more sober I got.

  About an hour after they’d rung the bell for last rounds, finally one of the bouncers started doing a sweep of the room. He told us they wanted to lock up and he asked us to leave, quite nicely actually, but I watched him, and he was hard on you if you were sleeping. I saw him tip one guy out of his chair to wake him up.

  “So should we head off?” I said.

  “Fuck that,” Dewald said. “Let him try. I’ll fucking donner hom in sy poes.”

  Charlotte was resting on the table with her head on her arms. We heard her say, “I wouldn’t mind going, actually.” She sat up. There was a huge smear from her eyeshadow down one of her cheeks. “I think I’ve done well.”

  “Raait, cool,” Dewald said.

  He tried to stand up—he pushed off his chair but then just when his legs needed to straighten out and lift him they buckled, and he started going down. A flailing arm went out but all it did was sweep some glasses onto the floor for him to land on. The first thing I thought was, Please god, no one laugh at him—

  And then Charlotte started laughing.

  There was a moment when I wasn’t sure what was going to happen—he looked like he was about to fucking lose it—but then he stood up and laughed a bit too, and just started picking glass out of his arm.

  I said to him, “Hey Dewald, I stopped drinking hours ago. I’d pass the shit out of a breathalyser. How about I drive us home?”

  And god, all that anger from his fall flushed back into his face—

  He stepped in close to me and he said, “Is jy fokken mal?”

  “So you’re going to drive?” I said. “Where’re your keys?”

  He patted his pockets for a while. Then he got on all fours and started crawling around, looking for them on the floor. Then he said, “Shit, man. Where the fuck’s my keys?”

  I said, “No, look, they’re on the chair over there. I was just trying to make a point.”

  And then Charlotte basically saved my life.

  She came and stood right in front of me, blocking Dewald off just as he was going to come up and grab me or hit me or something—

  And she was speaking so calmly

  Her voice like steeled silk

  “Hey, Dewald, wag. Luister. Just listen. He’s right. You’re too drunk.”

  She put her hand on his arm.

  “Hy ry soos ’n fokken tannie,” she said. “This way you get home safe.”

  It was dawn outside—the sky was like cigarette smoke. There were a few cars on the road and some of them were doing without headlights already. Dewald had passed out in my arms when I was helping him into the back seat. He slept the whole way back. Charlotte was in front next to me, dripping some hash oil onto a cigarette for the drive home. It was a pretty fun car to drive except I felt like I had to brake all the time to stay under the speed limit. Also I probably looked like a bit of a poes from the outside because of the spoiler and the spiky mags and the silver tint on the windshield.

  The cigarette smelled like hot spices.

  She passed it to me, then she said, “So what do you think of our plan? You were very quiet earlier.”

  “Your plan?”

  “Yes, man. With Dewald.”

  “I don’t think I was there when you were talking about it.”

  “Ed, it was at the table in Stones. We spoke about it for an hour, at least.”

  “Well, okay, I might’ve been there, but you know what I mean. I probably wasn’t listening.”

  I was lucky the hash was making her giggly. “Are you listening now?”

  “Hang on,” I said. Then I waited a while, just till she laughed, “Okay, go,” I said.

  The plan was quite obvious—that we’d use this money Dewald apparently had to buy stock and sling it, either in town or else just in Muizenberg, maybe both. They hadn’t worked out the specifics yet. I let her finish talking and then I sat for a while and pretended to mull it over.

  I said, “Charlotte, I don’t want to be predictable, but I don’t think it’s a great plan.”

  “Why not?”

  “Two reasons. Firstly,” I said, and I gestured at the back seat, “does that look like a sustainable business model to you?”

  “Ag, he doesn’t do this every night.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me. He’s been lonely, man. He’s just happy to see me.”

  “Well, okay. Fine,” I said. I passed her the cigarette. “Secondly though, Charlotte, and this I really have to tell you, dealing and using, like we’d be doing, small-time steady-habit stuff, oh my god, it’s a fucking grind. I can really promise you that. It’s like you’re in debt all the time, and all you can do is try get other people to share your debt, and you just shuffle it around and around and it just gets deeper all the time. I promise, it’s an awful way to go about this. I’d rather get fucked off my face and go work double-time at the harbour a few days a week or something. Much rather.”

  She was quiet but I could tell she was angry.

  “Charlotte—” I said.

  But she went, “God, is this only Newlands?” and she sighed loudly and turned and curled up in her seat with her back to me. “Talk to yourself if you need to stay awake.”

  It was still a long way back to Muizenberg, and I kept stealing glances at Dewald. Sleeping, he looked a lot like TJ again.

  My mind went back to that night on Currie Street.

  When I got home after seeing TJ at the campsite, my dad was passed out in his chair in the lounge. It was completely dark inside.

  Even though he never really knew what I was asking about—or seemed to notice anymore when I went or came back—I still normally liked to ask before I took the car.

  That time, though, I didn’t ask. I just crept into the kitchen and found the keys, then turned on the hall light in case my dad woke up at some point and wanted to get back to bed. Then I went out to the car and started it and paced around the yard while it warmed up.

  TJ was so edgy in the car it was unbearable. The drive over to Currie Street only took about ten minutes but he must’ve sighed and scratched at himself like a hundred times. He had a backpack with him that he kept touching and fussing with. He showed me, it had twenty-five thousand rand in it. You wouldn’t believe how little that looks when it’s all folded and packed away.

  I was terrified and I had so many questions. But I knew if I asked one, it’d turn into a torrent
and I’d hack him off

  And so I just drove, as smoothly as I could considering my leg was shaking so much.

  I turned off Ayliff Street and went past the fields and the shooting range at one of the rich schools in town—the one where you could go to class with girls—and then I took an extra loop around the next block because I wasn’t ready to get to Currie Street just yet.

  “Do you know the number of the house?” I asked him finally.

  “He says it’s a dark-green place.”

  “Okay. Might be quite hard to see that, though—”

  “With a cow skull on a pole outside,” TJ said.

  “Jesus fuck. What?”

  TJ just looked out the window. Then scratched at himself some more.

  I took the next turn into Currie Street and I went maybe fifty metres down the road and then I saw the place coming up on the next block. A squat, square place, mostly dark, but with a red curtain burning in a big window near the front. The house stood in a dry yard with a massive bluegum in it, and from across the street already, you could see the skull mounted on a gum pole right next to the pavement.

  “Jesus,” I said. “What’s the deal with that thing?”

  “Ag, he’s coloured,” TJ said. “Just pull over here.”

  I stopped the car on the other side of the road.

  “Nou, luister. Dis Ed, hey?”

  “Ja.”

  “Luister, Ed. Give me five minutes. Ten at the most. Just take a slow drive, not too far, hey, sommer just round the block. But then when you come back, park right outside the place. Okay? Right outside.”

  I nodded at him and said, “Got it.”

  He picked up the backpack and just before he got out he said, “Wish me luck. I’m going to lowball the kak out of him.”

  “Ja, good luck,” I said.

  “Right outside, hey, Ed.”

  “Right outside.”

  I was watching him cross the road but then he turned round and made a violent fuck-off sort of gesture at me, so I put the car in gear and moved on down the street.

  Obviously it occurred to me that I could just keep driving, take the car home, lie low for a few days until Festival ended, hopefully never see TJ again.

  But you know how it is, I also had my devil in me, and his hands were on the steering wheel

  And there was this constant, urgent whisper in my ear of Why not?

  You’re so close now to something.

  I did the block, very slowly—I had to put the car in second gear or otherwise it was going to stall—but I still got to the place with far too much time to spare.

  I didn’t want to have the radio on just in case there was something I really needed to hear from outside—gunshots, screams, sirens—and it was terrible in the car all by myself with nothing except bad things to think about, and that skull on the pole outside fucking with me in a big way.

  I got out the car so I could turn my back on the skull, you know, properly, and I walked just a bit down the road

  And then I heard something—maybe glass breaking inside the house, and then this sharp yell, harsh and short like tearing paper.

  Before I could think, the door burst open and TJ came running out, but running in this weird, weird way, his one leg looked totally limp

  And his one arm was flailing in front of him to help him keep his balance

  And then he dropped something, a package, and he kicked it over towards the car just as he fell over, not quite yet in the street.

  I went over to him and I could see it right away—this huge fucking knife, like a hunting knife, sticking out the back of his thigh.

  The blood was so dark where it pumped out of the wound.

  I looked over at the door to see if he was being chased but there was nothing there, just a slab of light

  And TJ was breathing like an animal, saying, “Kom, gou! Gou!” and he had his arms raised up to me.

  I went to help him up

  But then in the doorway I saw this dark shape—crawling

  Crawling, but still coming

  And I just freaked out and I bolted.

  I ran and opened the passenger door and jumped in the car.

  TJ was screaming at me but I wasn’t going back. Other people were coming out into their gardens, I could hear their voices.

  I was going to slam the door and tear off, but then, lying right there on the pavement—so stark in that horrid streetlight—was the black package TJ had dropped.

  And then I did it.

  I picked up the package. And right there—that was it. That was the snakebite, even if it was a while still before the poison really took hold.

  I drove home like a fiend—which was probably stupid—but I got there without seeing or hearing any cops

  And I kept checking my rear-view mirror, but no one was chasing me.

  I put the package—this black plastic bag strapped with brown tape—in the cubbyhole and then I ran into the house.

  I was standing in the dark doorway

  My heart beating in my temples

  And only then it hit me: You’ve got to get out, Ed.

  No two ways.

  You’ve got to run.

  I went to the lounge to see my dad but he wasn’t in his chair. I walked into the hall and there he was—about halfway down the lighted passage, lying on his side, passed out, with a piss stain spreading down his pants and a bit onto the carpet.

  Nothing that new there, but it hurt so much right then

  And I spun out on a whole other thing.

  This deep, sour feeling, almost like heartburn

  This bitter sympathy

  But how can you leave?

  What’s he going to do?

  And I thought for a long while about if I could just drive back there with the stuff, hand it over, say I’m sorry, maybe things could even be normal again in the morning

  But I couldn’t, I knew I couldn’t. I was far too fucking scared to try that.

  If I had to go, I really wanted to at least wake him up and say goodbye. I knelt next to him on the floor and rubbed his hand—that’s how I used to do it when I was a kid and I’d had a bad dream or whatever. Nothing. I went to the bathroom and got a little cup of cold water and trickled it on his face. Still nothing. I hated doing this one, because he always woke up with such a shock, but I rolled him onto his back and blocked his mouth and his nose and waited for his chest to snap him into life—

  And it happened, his eyes opened and he was there, for a second

  But then I let go of his nose and he was gone again, all the way gone.

  I didn’t have the stomach for another try, and so I went to his bedroom and I got his pillow and the duvet and the quilt, and—like I always did when I couldn’t get him into bed—I lifted his head and put the pillow underneath, then I folded the quilt and squeezed it under his hips and then I wrapped the duvet around him. This time, though, when the ritual was over, I knelt down next to him and kissed his forehead. It was freezing cold.

  I went into my room and packed a small bag full of clothes, then I went through to the lounge and fetched the beer crate we used as a side table and I packed all the books off my shelf into it. I found my id and then I wrote my dad a note.

  Dad,

  I HAVE to be out of town for a while.

  I’ll explain later, but I have to, I promise.

  PLEASE be okay while I’m gone. Try eat!!

  I’ll call as soon as I can.

  Love, Ed.

  I left the note and a glass of water in the hallway with him, and I packed the car and then I was standing in the driveway looking at the dark house—and Christ, I sobbed, a heaving sob that set off the neighbour’s dogs.

  I drove slowly out of town, not even because I didn’t want to look suspicious—

  I had the radio on, softly, just like a soundtrack, and I had my window rolled down and I was staring out of it, trying to say goodbye to the most familiar sights in the world but they all looked so uncanny. Th
e night was monstrous, and nothing was going to save it. All my thoughts kept zeroing back to that dark blood pumping out of TJ’s leg—

  And my dad—

  Back there alone in the house, with his head full of black sleep and a morning even worse than usual on its way …

  I thought I’d hit a kind of fever pitch with the comedown stuff—

  We were finally in Lakeside—

  The car was whining as I took it down through the gears, driving in through Zeekoevlei in case there was a roadblock on Main Road.

  I shook Charlotte a bit, but she was sleeping.

  I got us home and parked the Monza and opened my door. Wet air and cold light came rushing into the car. The two of them didn’t move.

  I’d thought myself into a kind of depressed stupor by that point, but somehow I managed to get Charlotte inside, carrying her, mostly. I went back to the car and cracked open a couple of windows for Dewald, then I locked him in there and slipped the keys in through one of the windows.

  When I got back inside Charlotte had passed out on the couch.

  I didn’t have the strength to move her again.

  I had to go to bed on my own and even though I was so tired, I lay awake for ages, my head still thick with that exacting comedown logic, that web where everything linked back to the fact that I was a fuck-up, and I deserved it all.

  Who knows how long it really was, but it felt like hours. I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t sleep, and then finally, the self-loathing sort of burned off, and left a kind of acrid, self-pitying grease behind

  And I thought how unfair it was, how the first time I really dipped my head into the Lowlife, the very first time, I seemed to come out fucking baptised—it’s like I’ve been stuck in it ever since.

  But that was it. That was the thing.

  You always hear people call it getting stuck—I knew a guy once who tried to keep me sober by teaching me some Buddhist stuff, and he used to say when your mind’s got drugs in it, it’s like being stuck to flypaper in a room with a beautiful floor

  And I get that, I really do—

  But the actual, horrible thing is no matter how stuck you get, mostly you can still go places, you meet people, you fight, you fall in love, have a life